


bohemian nightmare (dust-bowl chic)

by pentaghastly



Category: Archie Comics, Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, F/F, cheryl needs somewhere to live and Toni is the roommate from hell, fluff? in MY fics? it's more likely than you think, her and betty are friends because i said so, imagine being this non-heterosexual, so cheryl spends this story Annoyed in Gay Minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 02:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: Toni is loud. She’s dirty. She goes to sleep at three in the morning and wakes up at noon, crabby and disgruntled and pounding back at least four of Cheryl’s caramel flavoured Keurig coffees. Her friends all smell like cheap beer and cigarettes and they always,alwaysleave their dirty dishes piled in the sink after they spend the night yelling at whatever ridiculous sports game they were invading her personal space to watch.She hadn’t seen Toni Topaz, World’s Worst Roommate, coming.Before she knows it, she’s right in the middle.





	bohemian nightmare (dust-bowl chic)

**Author's Note:**

> this story is based off of:
> 
> a) my nightmares of having an awful roommate
> 
> b) my dreams of having a hot punk gf
> 
> so it's all self-indulgent fluff but isn't that the best kind?

If you had asked Cheryl Blossom what she imagined her last year of college would look like, she would _not_ have said anything quite like this.

Toni is loud. She’s dirty. She goes to sleep at three in the morning and wakes up at noon, crabby and disgruntled and pounding back at least four of Cheryl’s caramel flavoured Keurig coffees. Her friends all smell like cheap beer and cigarettes and they always, _always_ leave their dirty dishes piled in the sink after they spend the night yelling at whatever ridiculous sports game they were invading her personal space to watch.

She hadn’t seen Toni Topaz, World’s Worst Roommate, coming.

Before she knows it, she’s right in the middle.

 

-

 

It’s a complicated, messy, depressing beginning, just like the start of every other relationship in Cheryl’s life.

Jason has run away and her dear, disgusting daddy has gone to jail for his dirty business habits and her mother has finally gone off the deep end, and suddenly all the family money Cheryl had been dipping into to pay for her adorable one-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg was…well, _gone_.

Cousin Betty is comfortably shacked up with her greasy, Knockoff Caufield-esque boyfriend. Veronica’s apartment is bigger but it’s also shared by her lug of a boyfriend _and_ Josie, and Cheryl isn’t going to demean herself by begging one of them to let her sleep on the couch. She knows that Keller and Moose have an extra room, but she _also_ knows that the bedrooms share walls and she’s absolutely not planning on spending her year listening to the banging of their headboard.

Besides, she can’t just tell them she’s _poor_. Just the thought of saying the words out loud sends bile up her throat.

“I have a friend who needs a roommate.” Betty says out of the blue one day over coffee, and Cheryl doesn’t ask how she knows - as Virgin Mary as she looks, she knows her cousin has an uncanny ability of sniffing out family secrets - but she doesn’t bother questioning the statement. “If you know anyone who might be interested.” 

“I don’t need to take charity from a girl who gets all her outfit inspo from eighteenth century nuns,” she snips, but Betty just keeps _looking_ and her expression is so disgustingly pitiful that Cheryl actually begins to wonder which one of them this situation is impacting the most.

So she says she’ll look into it, and the rest is history.

(Bloody, bloody history.)

 

-

 

It starts like this:

“It’s not exactly a Manhattan penthouse,” Toni says, waving her arms around the room, “but it serves it’s purpose.”

“Is that purpose to make me feel like I’m living in a low-budget adaptation of The Yellow Wallpaper? Or to lead me to an early death by cholera?” She’s being unnecessarily rude, Cheryl knows - she _always_ knows - but still. Her hopes hadn’t been high, but they certainly hadn’t been this low.

Topaz doesn’t look offended, at least. Cheryl might have even thought she looked amused if she didn’t know better, but she does, so she thinks it must just be a trick of the very limited light. “Isn’t cholera something you get from food?”

“I’m sorry, does it _look_ like I just stepped out of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy?” By the state of the apartment - dusty, dismal, lower-middle class - Cheryl doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that the food is probably infested with disease too. “Did you even try to clean the pace up before I came over?”

“Depends on what your definition of clean is.” 

It’s such a ridiculous statement said with such striking indifference that in any other context it might be amusing, but certainly not this one. “My definition of clean is the _standard_ one. The one where my living space doesn’t vaguely resemble a New Jersey garbage dump.” 

Toni shrugs, smiles, and it’s in that moment that Cheryl vows to hate her forever. She’s pretty and fashionable in a London Underground kind of way, but Cheryl Blossom comes from marble countertops and a limousine parked in her driveway and she does not, does _not_ , associate with people who wear fishnets with holes under jeans with _more_ holes that don’t even look like they were bought deliberately distressed.

“No one’s making you stay here,” Toni says, and Cheryl bites back, “ _Obviously_ ,” to which Toni replies, “I mean, you’re only living with me because you have no other option, right?” and they stand there in silence a moment longer before her roommate (her fucking _roommate_ ) points to a door on the left.

“That one’s yours,” she says, and continues, “It’s got the bigger closet.”

It’s more than nothing, Cheryl thinks, but at this point that really doesn’t seem to be saying a lot.

 

-

 

It doesn’t take her long to learn that Toni’s living habits are utterly horrendous. She'd had an idea of it when she first arrived, but even then she’d fooled herself into thinking that it couldn’t possibly be _that_ bad all the time. And, she thinks, in a way she was right.

Somehow, it’s worse.

“You know,” she tells Betty on the phone on the evening of her second (full) day in the apartment, careful to keep her voice quiet - Toni is out in the living room shotgunning beer with two mangey looking men named _Fangs_ and _Sweet Pea_ , the latter of whom had looked at her as if she was something to eat. Toni’d smacked him upside the head for it, but it still leaves her feeling as though she has eight layers of grime to wash off. “You can stop by any day and pick your knife.” 

Betty sighs, a familiar, tired sound, and one that Cheryl still delights in after all these years. They’re on better terms now than they’ve ever been, but that doesn’t mean their relationship isn’t at least _somewhat_ antagonistic. “What’re you talking about, Cheryl?”

“Oh, you don’t remember? It’s the one you left in my back, _Brutus _.”__

__“Toni isn’t that bad.” It’s the understatement of the year, and apparently even Betty seems to realize this as she corrects herself soon enough. “I mean, she’s a a bit messy, but it has to be better than living with your mom, right?”_ _

__Normally she would agree without hesitation, but the night before she’d made her way home only to find Toni using her signature red Chanel lipstick as “an experiment” and it’d taken every ounce of her willpower not to pack her bags right then and there. But, like her roommate had so kindly pointed out the day she moved in, it isn’t as though she has anywhere else to go._ _

__Now she looked around the room, at the peeling beige paint and the near-rotten window frame, and she has to wonder just what all of this is actually worth. “I was finally free, Betty.”_ _

__There’s silence on the other line, and then another sigh - this one different from the first. “I know. But it’s just temporary.”_ _

__Toni’s laugh echoes on the other side of the wall, strong and brash and unapologetically unrestrained, and she has to wonder how someone so small can possibly manage to take up such a horrifying amount of space. In all reality, she doesn’t think she actually wants to know._ _

__And she can’t shake the feeling that this all feels unnervingly _final_._ _

__

__-_ _

__

__“My band has a show tonight.” They’re having breakfast in silence on the fourth day of the second week of cohabitation - Cheryl sitting at the table like a civilized creature, Toni sprawled out on the couch with her cereal bowl perched precariously on her chest. “Playing at The Thirsty Crow. You been there?”_ _

__Cheryl takes a sip of her coffee ( _plain_ coffee, the last caramel having been stolen by her roommate the day before), wincing as the bitter taste hits her tongue, before answering. “I make a point not to go to bars that have an animal in their name. Not all of us are willing to risk contracting enteritis to get a cheap drink.”_ _

__“You have a _thing_ about diseases that make you shit yourself, hey?” _ _

__She chokes on her drink, but doesn’t justify that with a response._ _

__(She doesn’t have to - Cheryl is sure her face says it all.)_ _

__“ _Anyways_ , if you feel like breaking your weirdo rule,” Toni’s smile only brightens as Cheryl’s scowl grows, if that’s possible, but perhaps the most frustrating thing of all is how pretty she looks, and how unfair it is that someone so infuriating can look like _that_. She has to train her eyes on the screen of her iPhone just to ensure she doesn’t gawk. “You should swing by later on. We’re pretty good, once you get past the fact that none of us really know any actual notes.” _ _

__Cheryl pretends to think for half a second before shaking her head, hardly even bothering to tear her gaze away from Reggie’s latest idiotic Facebook post (a picture of his abs, something about ‘ _gains_ ’, following the pattern of his last twenty photos). “I wish I could, but the thing is I really don’t _want_ to.”_ _

__She waits for the bark of Toni’s laughter, the all-too-cool demeanour that follows all of Cheryl’s insults, but it doesn’t come. It’s the silence, heavy and oppressive, that prompts her to look up._ _

__Whatever she expects, this isn’t quite it. She looks up and notes that, in no uncertain terms, Toni doesn’t look sad. She doesn’t look hurt, or offended, or annoyed. She just looks _indifferent_ , and somehow Cheryl thinks that’s worse than anything else. “We’re on until twelve, in case you change your mind.”_ _

__Cheryl doesn’t bother telling her that she won’t - she’s pretty sure Toni’s got the message loud and clear._ _

__She can’t figure out why that thought bothers her so much._ _

__

__-_ _

__

__“How did the show go?” she asks the next morning (or early afternoon, depending on which one of them you asked) as Toni stumbles in, eyeliner smudged down her cheeks in a way that Cheryl isn’t entirely certain isn’t deliberate._ _

__“I mean, considering we didn’t get thrown off the stage I’m going to call it a win”_ _

__“I’ll assume that’s because your opening notes deafened the audience.”_ _

__For the first time since they’ve known one another Toni actually misses a beat before laughing, and Cheryl knows what that means - she’s taken her by surprise. I’t s amore pleasant feeling than she’d expected. “Jesus, Cherry. That’s harsh, even from you.”_ _

__“I’m _kidding_ , you hobo.” _ _

__They fall into silence again, but this one is unfamiliar - it might almost be mistaken as _pleasant_._ _

__So it follows, then, that Toni has to ruin it._ _

__“Strangest thing happened last night, though. I could’ve sworn I saw your _exact_ twin in the crowd towards the end of our set - your female, non-Jason twin - but she disappeared before I could get a closer look.” Cheryl’s thankful, then, that Toni’s fumbling around in the kitchen with her back turned, that she can’t see the look of panic that flickers across her face. “Unless - I mean, I don’t suppose you changed your mind and stopped by after all?” _ _

__“You think I took the train out to Bushwick just to watch you preform in a dingy bar named after _vermin_?” She scoffs, but the sound is strange and Cheryl is certain that Toni can hear it. All the awkwardness she’s feeling (her, Cheryl Blossom, _awkward_ ) is spilling out into the five hundred square-foot apartment like water. “That’s a new level of delusion, even for you.”_ _

__Toni stares at her a minute, and Cheryl can see it written over her face - _suspicion_ \- before turning back to the fridge again. “Your loss, Blossom. You missed a girl in the audience throwing her bra on stage.” _ _

She almost says, ‘ _The same girl you went home with, right?_ ’, but she doesn’t, because Toni’s not her girlfriend and she’s not even her friend, and the jealousy that’s coiling around her windpipe is almost as vile as the peanut butter and ketchup sandwich she has the misfortune of watching Toni put together. 

__“There’s something wrong with you,” she huffs, and Toni replies, “Probably,” and the only thing that makes this any different than any of their other banter is that this time when her roommate smiles, Cheryl smiles back._ _

_Definitely more than nothing._

__

__-_ _

__

__Three and a half weeks into their _situation_ , Cheryl comes home from the library to find Betty and Jughead curled up on their couch watching a movie, while Toni lays sprawled across the floor._ _

__“Did I wander into a halfway house by mistake?” she asks, voice dripping with sarcasm thinly veiling affection, but the only response she gets is a shushing, not a single head turned her way. A glance at the screen - and at young Leonardo in a tacky Hawaiian shirt - clues her into what they’re watching, and Cheryl can’t help but scoff. Of course the Misery Twins would bring their depressing Shakespearian nonsense into her living room._ _

__What surprises her is how utterly enthralled Toni looks, and it doesn’t take much thought to slide down next to her on the floor, suddenly grateful that she’d taken the time to vacuum the afternoon before._ _

__“I want something like that.” Toni speaks so softly that Cheryl barely hears her, and even then she’s not sure that she’s not imagining it._ _

__“A relationship that ends in your untimely death? I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she can’t believe _any_ of this, really, “but even you deserve better than that.”_ _

__Toni nudges her gently with her shoulder, the movement familiar and affectionate and not at all something that’s found it’s way into their relationship up until this point. Cheryl finds herself wishing she would do it again. “I always knew you had a heart buried somewhere under all that snark.”_ _

__“See, _this_ is why I’m not nice to people. I already regret it.”_ _

__She can feel Toni looking at her, not just looking but _staring_ , and it’s not as unsettling as it would have been a week ago. There’s something in that worth examining, Cheryl thinks, but she shoves it to the back of her mind for a later date. Instead she refocuses her gaze on the screen, on the kiss in the elevator and the way that Young Leo grips Claire Danes’ dress like he’s holding on for dear life._ _

__“I didn’t mean the _death_ part,” Toni clarifies, but Cheryl still doesn’t feel like inquiring further. It seems like the kind of information that needs to be offered, not requested. She doesn’t flaunt them often, but she does still have a faint knowledge of social niceties._ _

__So she waits for Toni to elaborate further, and her patience pays off just a few moments later. “I meant something loud, you know? Something so loud it refuses be ignored.” Toni’s looking at the screen as well, but she nudges Cheryl again - this time a little gentler, the movement lingering just a bit longer. “Kind of like you.”_ _

__The words are spoken so casually that it takes her a minute to register their weight, but once she does it’s the only thing she can think about for the rest of the night. Even when Juliet dies and Betty sits snivelling behind her on the couch, she can’t tear her thoughts away from _’kinda like you’_ , from over analyzing everything that they could possibly mean._ _

__Worse than that, she can’t figure out why she cares._ _

__

__-_ _

__

__She mentions it to Betty on the phone the next day, and her cousin giggles before calling her _adorable_ , and the whole thing is so infuriating that she wishes she had a flip phone just so she could punctuate her frustration by slamming it shut._ _

__Cheryl doesn’t have a crush on Toni Topaz. She _can’t_ have a crush on Toni Topaz._ _

__But that evening they cook dinner together in their too-tiny kitchen and Toni brushes against her five times, at least three of which Cheryl is certain couldn’t possibly have been by accident, and every time she does her heart skips another beat until it feels like it’s literally about to burst out of her chest._ _

__They’re going to bed (at the same time, at a _reasonable_ time, which is well out of her roommates character) and Toni says “Night, Cherry,” and Cheryl smiles so bright she thinks her face might split in two._ _

___More than nothing_. She’s starting to wonder what those words really mean._ _

__

__-_ _

__

__They dance around each other for the next few days, hovering just on the periphery of closeness, and it’s confusing but it’s _nice <./em>. Toni starts waking up earlier, Cheryl notes, and she unloads the dishwasher without prompting, and she starts actually sitting at the table to eat her meals.__ _

___It stands that Cheryl is obligated to bug hear about it, and the reply that she gets isn’t the one that she expected._ _ _

___“Yeah, well, I figured that if I want you to stick around I should probably stop being the roommate from hell.” She almost looks shy, and while she would normally press further Cheryl manages to bite her tongue. This companionship that they’ve built together is nice, and she doesn’t want to ruin it by being herself._ _ _

___Instead she says, “I appreciate that,” and they go back to folding their laundry together, sneaking glances when they think the other can’t see._ _ _

___In a couple of weeks the apartment is damn near spotless, and while it’s hardly the nicest place she’s ever live, not even cracking the top five, it’s beginning to feel like something comfortable. Cheryl stops dreading coming home in the evenings, instead looking forward to her conversations with Toni over dinner, the gentle teasing, the way that her heart seems to worm it’s way all the way up into the base of her throat every time they stand within two feet from one another._ _ _

___She feels like a school girl. She feels like _Betty_ , bashful and uncertain. For the first time in recent memory, she doesn’t feel as though she has the upper hand; Toni has all the power in this relationship, if that’s what it can even be called, and she’s completely lost on how to proceed._ _ _

___One morning she’s getting ready for a meeting with one of her professors and when she’s fixing her hair in the mirror she catches Toni staring at her in the reflection - when their eyes meet neither one of them looks away, and it’s almost like she can actually _see_ the air in between them shifting. It’s something wonderful, something new._ _ _

___“You look beautiful,” Toni says, and Cheryl thinks, _shit_._ _ _

___‘Lost’ doesn’t even begin to cover it._ _ _

___ _

___-_ _ _

___ _

___On the first day of the second month of Cheryls tenancy in Toni’s not-entirely-disgusting, dust-free, dustbowl-chic apartment, they decide to celebrate by cooking pancakes_ _ _

___Or _trying_ to cook pancakes, more accurately. Toni gets egg shell in the batter and when Cheryl (nicely) snaps at her for having the culinary skills of a blind four year old she’s barely finished her sentence before her face - and her two hundred dollar Alice and Olivia pyjamas - is covered in flour. _ _ _

___Five minutes later the entire kitchen is a white-dusted mess and they’re giggling uncontrollably, cheeks flushed under the coat of powder and Cheryl looks at Toni and thinks _’I can do this forever,’_ but what she says is:_ _ _

___“You’ve got something on your nose.”_ _ _

___When Toni kisses her a moment later, cautious and gentle like she thinks Cheryl might break underneath her touch, it doesn’t feel like anything new._ _ _

___When Toni kisses her for the first time it feels, in the middle of their cracked and crumbling third-story apartment, with the cockroaches scuttling across the floorboards and the sound of sirens streaming in from outside their window, just a little bit like coming home._ _ _

___And that, Cheryl thinks, is the farthest thing from nothing that she's ever known._ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos are greatly appreciated xx


End file.
